This data was collected from Hewitt Health Resource (HHR), a website that captures HMO rate information for nearly 160 large companies representing more than 1 million employees and annual premiums of nearly $4 billion.
According to Paul Harris, senior health care strategist for Hewitt Associates, “Although there has been a steady decline in the level of HMO rate increases over the past several years, double-digit increases are still very difficult for employers to absorb… The good news is that there do not appear to be market pressures that might cause rates to begin increasing again.”
Because of these cost increases employers are passing along some of those costs to their employees in the form of increasing copay amounts. The report showed this change as “the number of companies offering $20 office copays continues to increase from 16 percent in 2004 and 25 percent in 2005 to 29 percent in 2006.”
This is nothing too out of the ordinary these days but still indicates the need for a re-haul of our current health system in this country. Either change happens or we might see a mass exodus of disgruntled citizens.
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